Prayer
She put her question to the great oracle and hoped that the tithe would not be too costly. Her credit allotment for the month was almost spent, and still three days remained until the next addition was disbursed.
What should I wear today?
In her head, the oracle responded: Something of your mother's.
She furrowed her brows at the response. The price had been raised to around $ 0.50 per word, and though she was frustrated with having to interpret the terseness of the oracle's prophecy, her account was left with scant few dollars to spare for clarification. The thought of asking anything further left her mind when a gaudy mint-green dress caught her eye from the closet of her dormitory.
The dress, her mother's, was made in a factory overseas by humans, with old-fashioned sewing machines where you piloted the cloth with your hands. She tried to imagine the effort that went into that, but couldn't get a good picture. She thought about asking about it, but didn't have enough money left to justify such a frivolous question. There was no use thinking about it. The dress was not her size, and hung off of her shoulders askew, the fabric bunching loosely about her waist and nearly dragging on the floor, and she almost tripped walking. Outside, nobody looked at her, and she was grateful.
When she arrived at the shop, she placed her order at the kiosk and her account was charged automatically. Small java shake with tapioca pearl and cinnamon, two shots extra espresso. While she waited, a leonine man in a smock mopped up a spilled drink, and she smiled to herself. Some of her peers were so indebted to the food company as to be subjected to work. Her account was a meager sum of $1,270.04, far below the job eligibility threshold. She only reached about $5,000 at the end of last year when the debt reset.
The seating area was effectively full, so she elected to stand by the receptacle where her drink would soon appear. From there, the normal whirs and clicks of arms whisking ingredients to their positions, to her surprise, could not be heard. They were replaced with a wheezing and scraping, the chafing of metal on itself and a snapping sound like tired knees bending. The beverage emerged lukewarm to the touch, and upon inspection appeared mauve rather than the typical pale brown. Tentatively, she tendered a question to the oracle.
My coffee is made incorrectly, should I drink it, get a refund, or throw it away?
Again the reply: Drink.
The drink was a congealed slurry of chipped burnt beans and milk, and resisted suction through the straw. A sandy grit scratched against the plastic as she labored it up, and as it slid over her tongue it tasted sharp like an engine's insides. The oracle works in mysterious ways, she thought, and was never wrong. Her mind raced with ideas of what she would need the energy for later.